e difficult to mention a single article of food which
is not to be met with in an adulterated state; and there are some
substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine.

Some of these spurious compounds are comparatively harmless when used
as food; and as in these cases merely substances of inferior value are
substituted for more costly and genuine ingredients, the sophistication,
though it may affect our purse, does not injure our health. Of this kind
are the manufacture of factitious pepper, the adulterations of mustard,
vinegar, cream, &c. Others, however, are highly deleterious; and to this
class belong the adulterations of beer, wines, spiritous liquors,
pickles, salad oil, and many others.

There are particular chemists who make it a regular trade to supply
drugs or nefarious preparations to the unprincipled brewer of porter or
ale; others perform the same office to the wine and spirit merchant; and
others again to the grocer and the oilman. The operators carry on their
processes chiefly in secresy, and under some delusive firm, with the
ostensible denotements of a fair and lawful establishment.

These illicit pursuits have assumed all the order and method of a
regular trade; they may severally claim to be distinguished as an _art
and mystery_; for the workmen employed in them are often wholly ignorant
of the nature of the substances which pass through their hands, and of
the purposes to which they are ultimately applied.

To elude the vigilance of the inquisitive, to defeat the scrutiny of the
revenue officer, and to ensure the secresy of these mysteries, the
processes are very ingeniously divided and subdivided among individual
operators, and the manufacture is purposely carried on in separate
establishments. The task of proportioning the ingredients for use is
assigned to one individual, while the composition and preparation of
them may be said to form a distinct part of the business, and is
entrusted to another workman. Most of the articles are transmitted to
the consumer in a disguised state, or in such a form that their real
nature cannot possibly be detected by the unwary. Thus the extract of
_coculus indicus_, employed by fraudulent manufacturers of malt-liquors
to impart an intoxicating quality to porter or ales, is known in the
market by the name of _black extract_, ostensibly destined for the use
of tanners and dyers. It is obtained by boiling the berries of the
coculus indicus in water, an